Free Falling for the Secret Millionaire by Kate Hardy

Gabriel had tried to leverage their friendship to make her sell the cinema to him. Which made him as much of a user as Jeff. And that was something she found hard to forgive.
    â€˜Mr Hunter, we really have nothing to say to each other.’
    â€˜Georgy—Nicole,’ he corrected himself, ‘we’ve talked every night for months and I think that’s real.’
    â€˜But your company wants to buy my cinema.’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜It’s not for sale. Not now, and not ever.’
    â€˜Message received and understood,’ he said. ‘Have you spoken to a surveyor yet?’
    â€˜No,’ she admitted.
    â€˜I can give you some names.’
    â€˜I bet you can.’
    He frowned. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
    â€˜A surveyor who’ll tell me that there’s so much wrong, the best thing I can do is raze it to the ground and sell you the site as a car park for your new hotel?’ she asked waspishly.
    â€˜No. I’m really not like Henry Potter,’ he said again. ‘I was trying to be nice. To help you, because I have experience in the area and you don’t.’
    â€˜Why would you help me when we’re business rivals?’
    â€˜Because we don’t have to be rivals,’ he said. ‘Maybe we can work together.’
    â€˜How?’
    â€˜What do you intend to do with the place?’
    â€˜You’ve already asked me that, and my answer’s the same.’ She looked at him. ‘Would you tell a business rival what your strategy was?’
    He sighed. ‘Nicole, I’m not asking for rivalry reasons. I’m asking, are you going to run it as a cinema or are you going to use the space for something else? You once said if you could do anything you wanted, you’d open a café and have a space where people could do some kind of art.’
    â€˜It’s a possibility,’ she allowed. ‘I need to sort out my costings first and work out the best use of the space.’ And she really had to make this work. She didn’t want to lose all her savings and her security—to risk being as vulnerable as her mother had been when Nicole was growing up, having no choices in what she did.
    â€˜If you want to set up an art café,’ he said, ‘maybe I can help you find better premises for it.’
    â€˜And sell you the cinema? We’ve already discussed this, and you can ask me again and again until you’re blue in the face, but it’s not happening. Whatever I do, it’ll be done right here.’
    â€˜OK. Well, as a Surrey Quays resident—’
    â€˜You mean you actually live here?’ she broke in. ‘You didn’t just join the forum to listen out for people protesting against your development so you could charm them out of it?’
    He winced. ‘That was one of the reasons I joined the forum initially, I admit.’
    So she’d been right and their whole relationship had been based on a lie. Just as it had with Jeff. Would she never learn?
    â€˜But I do live in Surrey Quays,’ he said, and named one of the most prestigious developments on the edge of the river. ‘I moved there eighteen months ago. And I’m curious about the cinema now I’m here. It’s been boarded up ever since I’ve lived in the area.’
    â€˜You seriously expect me to give you a guided tour?’
    â€˜Would you give Clarence a tour?’ he asked.
    Yes. Without a shadow of a doubt. She blew out a breath. ‘You’re not Clarence.’
    â€˜But I am,’ he said softly. ‘I know things about you that you haven’t told anyone else—just as you know things about me. We’re friends.’
    Was that true? Could she trust him?
    Part of her wanted to believe that her friendship with Clarence wasn’t a castle built on sand; part of her wanted to run as fast as she could in the opposite direction.
    Hope had a brief tussle with common